Course Listings | Spring 2012

Course information subject to change. Please check back frequently for updates. All courses are at 20 Cooper Square unless otherwise noted. To view a course description and syllabus, click on each course’s Title. Electives are the last tab and are available to all students.

Spring

» Undergraduate Journalism

Methods and Practice: The Art of Editing: From Copy Editing to Top Editing (WINTER)

1/3/12 to 1/20/12 10:00am-2:00pm Mon, Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri

TBA

Methods and Practice: The Art of Editing: From Copy Editing to Top Editing (WINTER)

A course that blends the practical aspects of technical editing with the critical thinking and craftsmanship needed to structure and polish stories till they shine. If you love to tweak a single sentence until it is absolutely clear, true and elegant, and enjoy deconstructing a feature story to truly understand how it was shaped, this is the class for you! The course will focus on both the micro elements of editing: from proofreading to punctuation, to grammar and usage as well as the macro elements: from line editing to cutting meaty stories in half to fit the space. Publication tone, house voice and writer's voice will be discussed in depth. Students will also be given the opportunity to work on stories for LEV, as needed. Pitching and writing skills will also be honed in this class. Ultimately, students will learn how to think like editors and shape and tweak stories analytically as well as technically.

Be ready to write longhand. No computers. No cell phones in class. Pencil andyellow legal sized paper only. Please be on time. Bring a jacket and a metro card.For the first class, there is absolute silence when you enter the room. Notalking. Not even to say hello to your neighbor. You want to hear a hello? Here itis: Hello. Now, no talking for the first ten minutes of class. It sounds stupid, but itis our first exercise.

Good writing is all about finding the right detail or set of details that will show, nottell, the event to the listener. You are always fighting gravity, always fighting the readerwho will close the paper, book, magazine and tune you out. We will focus on placing youin the right mental place to find the details that will tell the story, from your perspective, ina way that is honest to your truth and hold the reader.

There will be some reading aloud in class. There will be no bloodlettings. Ifyou’re willing to fail, you will be successful. If you’re already a journalistic success, thisisn’t the class for you. Remember, writing is the act of continually failing at excellence,and uniformity is the ceiling against which great writing will forever bump. The mid termand final will be your writing.

Before each class, you will be expected to read the following excerpts from “ANietzsche Reader” (Penguin) translated by R. J. Hollingdale. They are not long, but theyare important. We may alter this list based on my assessment of your abilities . Readingassignments in Gary Smith and Micheal Herr’s books, as well as our Marvel Comicclass, will be assigned as we go deeper into the semester and I am able to assess yourabilities.

Do you have something to say? A story to tell? An original voice? This course will nurture that voice, help shape the stories, sharpen your skills. The personal essay is a popular form of nonfiction writing, cherished by both writers and readers, but crafting a successful essay is a difficult skill. How can we be self-revealing without being self-indulgent? How can we make our own experiences powerful for others? In this course students will read some of the best essays around, from Langston Hughes to Joan Didion to Oliver Sacks to Marjorie Williams, and write their own, taking each one through several drafts. The heart of the course will be close reading and editing of students' work.

Learn to use a digital SLR camera. Practice the skills and techniques professionals use to produce story-telling images. Learn to capture fleeting moments, document daily life, and special events. By semester’s end, you should have a basic understanding of the history of photojournalism and the impact photographs have on society, legal and ethical concerns of photojournalists, digital production of photographs, and the importance of captions and text accompanying those photos. You should also have a variety of photojournalistic images suitable for an entry-level portfolio. Many of your images should be suitable for publication.

Develop your own story ideas, cover city and campus events. Edit and scan your own photographs using Adobe Photoshop or any similar image processing program. Share your photos with classmates; critique your own work and theirs in a group setting.

This is NOT a darkroom or basic photography class, but some portion of the class will be focused on teaching basic skills. The emphasis is on taking and editing pictures. A basic understanding of camera operation and exposure is required and recommended.

Peace, War and Faith: Reporting on Global Religion, Conflict and International Affairs

A blend of regionally-focused and thematic study, intense analysis of foreign news coverage, and actual production and reporting effort, Peace, War and Faith is a course designed for students interested in internationally-focused video or print journalism. The class will offer a rare opportunity for hands-on experience supporting the production of a new television news series on the intersection of international politics and global religion for a major national media outlet. In 2012-2013, Professor Jason Maloney's non-profit production unit, the Bureau for International Reporting, has contracted with PBS NewsHour to produce a six-part series on this theme for broadcast on NewsHour's national program. This course will work towards identifying, researching and developing topics that are of global importance and appropriate for television news production and inclusion in this series.

To this end, students will divide up the world into regional dossiers, study local dynamics and socio-political trends and develop individual stories from within their areas of focus. In class, students will present and brief the group on their region, and on developments that impact our major theme. This will involve aggregating news content from a series of media, international and regional, but will also involve primary source reporting using Skype, phone and email and though coverage of public meetings and events focused on their topic and hosted by relevant organizations in New York (Human Rights Watch, Asia Society, UN groups). We will also occasionally bring these experts to us... and hear from a series of guest speakers who are expert in the topics and regions we are covering.

Some of the efforts undertaken by students as part of this class will support the production of the primary stories that are covered as part of this NewsHour video series; other work will lead to content that will be disseminated through a dedicated project website that students will develop, curate and promote via social media and online partnerships. This course will offer those students interested in TV or video news production an opportunity to be a part of a major news project that will result in significant airtime on a nationally-broadcast, well-respected outlet. For those students not primarily interested in video, this course still offers the opportunity for first-hand reporting on global and topical subject matter with the potential for clips running on a promoted website outlet. The essential skills for story identification, development, research and writing, with an emphasis on storytelling, are universal to all dissemination platforms. Though our primary outlet for this project is television, the class will emphasize story and reporting.

Working along with the Bureau for International Reporting will also offer students a deconstructed look at a startup non-profit journalism operation. We will be relying on the entrepreneurial spirit of the students to further our model.

Students in this class will be involved in every aspect of producing a television newscast. The weekly shows will be broadcast live on the NYU cable system and streamed online. Each student will take on a different role, from anchoring, line producing, directing, to running audio, prompter or EP’ing. There will be strong emphasis on script writing, story selection and placement, as well as execution in the control room. The class assignments include both editorial and operational functions. Our class will act as a living newsroom where there is a tight deadline to get the show on the air. There will also be reporting assignments outside of the Tuesday class. “NYU Tonight” airs at 6pm every Tuesday for 30 minutes. We will reconvene as a group from 630 to 7p for post-game discussion.

Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) was the greatest cultural critic that America has ever produced – or so a good many cultural critics of our own time have come to believe. Wilson belonged to a circle of writers from the First World War generation that included John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. He wrote novels, poetry, plays, and diaries. But mostly he wrote book reviews and essays on literary, political and historical topics, which ran in the New Republic, the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and other magazines. His reviews and essays, assembled into books, have turned out to be classics – studied and cited by some of the most prominent critics of today.

The seminar will study Wilson’s style of journalistic writing – his emphases on clarity, on conversational ease, and on emotional forcefulness. The seminar will study his criticisms of the academic writing of his time. The students will be asked to apply Wilson’s principles of writing to their own compositions – an extremely useful thing to do for any student who seeks to become a better writer.

Empathy in narrative has roots in some of the earliest written stories—what is a literary character, after all, if not an imagining of the the world through someone else’s eyes? But empathy is not exclusively the tool of novelists and playwrights. In our time, journalists such as Alex Kotlowitz, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Anne Fadiman, Jon Krakauer, Susan Orlean, and Sebastian Junger (and earlier, John Hersey and others) have used a fiercely empathetic approach to create memorable and powerful nonfiction, often with social justice concerns. This course will survey the history and recent practice of empathetic nonfiction, using seminal readings as models for your own writing and reporting. In other words, it's a reading course and a writing course: Assignments will require original reporting and offer a chance to experiment with fundamentals of narrative writing such as scene-setting, character development, dialog, conflict, and writer’s voice.

Women & the Media is a collaborative seminar designed to examine the complex relationship(or different, contradictory relationships) between those humans we call “women” and thoseforms of discourse we call “media.” We will consider women both as subjects and objects, asartists and models, as creators of “media” in its many forms and as media’s creations. Whatdoes our culture’s “media” tell us about its ideas of gender? What, if anything, does our gendertell us about our readings of “media”? Student participation in this seminar is key: students areexpected to attend all sessions, to complete all the reading (there's lots of reading!), toparticipate actively in discussion, and to lead one of the class sessions themselves. Leading aclass means opening the day’s conversation with a presentation, critiquing and elaborating onthe assigned reading, bringing in additional relevant material, and suggesting questions orissues that seem particularly interesting or troublesome. The purpose of the course is todevelop our critical and self-critical faculties as journalists, media critics, consumers of media,and women or men—to think clearly, challenge our pet assumptions, and have fun.Along with attendance and informed class participation, students are required to conduct a miniresearchproject and present their findings to the class. I want you to pick a “women and media”topic that really interests you and then report the hell out of it. If you’re interested in the effect ofmusic videos on teenage girls, for instance, you would first put together an extensivebibliography of what has already been written on the subject. You would figure out what the keyquestions in the field were: do media images affect teens’ behavior or not, and how can anyonetell? You might interview some of the leading researchers in the area and tell us what they say.You’ll certainly want to read the most important books/articles on your subject. A paper is notrequired; instead, students will present their findings to the class during our last three sessions.

It has been 40 years since President Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders released its findings on the civil unrest that erupted in urban areas across the nation. The panel, commonly referred to as the Kerner Commission, concluded that we are living in two nations, “black, white, separate and unequal,” and devoted an entire chapter to the impact the media had on the nation’s race relations. “We believe that the media have thus far failed to report adequately on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and the underlying problems of race relations,” the report said. It added: “The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world. The ills of the ghetto, the difficulties of life there, the Negro’s burning sense of grievance, are seldom conveyed.”The report criticized as “shockingly backward” the industry’s failure to hire, train and promote African Americans. At the time, fewer than five percent of the newsroom jobs in the United States were held by African Americans. Today, despite the progress that’s been made in the hiring and coverage of African Americans and other so-called minorities, many critics say that the Kerner Report findings continue to resonate today. With the report as a backdrop, we will examine the portrayals of racial and ethnic minorities in the media, paying particular attention to African Americans – the subject of the Kerner Report – but also others, including Latinos, Asians, women, and gays and lesbians.

Learning from The Best To Be The Best is a survey of some of the most entertaining and well-written literary journalism of the last two centuries. We will read these articles and book excerpts carefully - "deep reading," it is called - to discover how good writers take basic journalism and enliven it with literary technique. We want to catalog as much of that technique and structure as we can so that we can "steal it," appropriate the devices for our own work. Students will work in teams; each week a team will "present" the readings and incite a discussion with the rest of the class. There will be some three to five formal academic papers in which students will be asked to demonstrate their understanding of the material, and there will be a number of "creative" assignments as well. The main text for the course is an excellent anthology of non-fiction: The Art of Fact by Kerrane and Yagoda..

New York is the most storied city in America; generations of writers have been entranced by it, and have produced masterpieces in tribute. We will look at the city as a character, in journalism, memoir, fiction, poetry, and film. What is the idea of New York in historical and contemporary imagination, and how different or similar are today's chroniclers of the city from their predecessors? What can we learn about urban reportage from the best practitioners of the genre? We will examine the texts for thematic concerns as well as those of craft. We will look at them as a car mechanic looks at a car; see how sentences are structured so that the text provides pleasure as well as information. And along the way, we will discover the broader possibilities and limitations of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and film.

The Middle East is in the headlines every day. But the coverage is often bewildering, focusing on the latest death toll in Iraq, a terrorist bombing, or an ongoing political crisis. There is little historical or political context in most of this coverage.

This course will provide students with an understanding of contemporary issues in the Middle East (such as the rise of militant Islam; the roots of Sunni-Shia tension; the failure of Arab nationalism; terrorism versus national resistance; the problem of the nation-state) by reading works that combine history, political analysis, and narrative journalism. This historical and political background will help students to eventually write about the region with depth and nuance, and to evaluate the coverage that they read.

We will also discuss the challenges of reporting from a region with competing narratives, authoritarian regimes that have little respect for a free press, and places where journalists must work under constant danger. We will have occasional guest speakers who have worked as foreign correspondents or editors managing coverage of the region.

An attempt to better understand the communications revolution we are undergoing through an investigation of the nature and consequences of previous communications revolutions. Using readings ranging from Plato to Sontag to Kundera, the course will look closely at the history of spoken language, images, writing, printing, photography, radio and television. How were they understood? How were they initially used or misused? What were their effects upon social patterns, politics and thought? What can that tell us about the potential and potential influence of digital communication?

*Priority given to Media Criticism Students. A permission code is required to register, contact the department at 212-998-7994 or undergraduate.journalism@nyu.edu.

To enroll: 1) Students must be declared journalism majors who have been offered an internship. The Career Services director must approve the internship. All sophomores must consult the director before applying for a credit internship. 2) No credit will be given for internships in advertising, marketing, public relations or the fashion/accessory closet. 3) Students may take the course for 1, 2, 3 or 4 credits but can earn no more than 4 credits total while attending the institute. Only one internship for credit is allowed per semester.

To enroll in Advanced Individualized Study, an interested student must find a full-time faculty member to be a sponsor and then must develop and file a syllabus. The syllabus must be approved by the faculty member and the Journalism Director of Undergraduate Graduate Studies (DUGS). It must list, in week by week fashion, all readings and all writing assignments that the student will undertake for the Advanced Individualized Study. Once approved, this syllabus constitutes your "contract" on the project and the student's work will be judged and graded with that in mind.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the basic protections and restrictions of the law as they apply to the media, as well as the ethical problems and dilemmas journalists face. First Amendment rights and legal and ethical responsibilities and limitations will be examined and discussed. The course will look at these questions from five viewpoints: from (i) the practical view of a journalist doing his job with (ii) heavy consideration of ethical imperatives, and (iii) from a legal prospective, all the while (iv) considering the rules in a public policy context- are they fair and appropriate in our society? -- while (v) noting the historical context in which they arise. Significant court cases and fundamental legal rules as well as past ethical scandals and issues will be explored in the context of political and historical realities, and in terms of journalistic standards and practices; contemporary media law issues and ethical problems and guidelines will also be focused on. Among the basic First Amendment issues which will be examined are libel, invasion of privacy, prior restraints, newsgathering and newsgathering torts, and the reporter's privilege; some of the ethical issues to be explored include objectivity in reporting, bias and transparency, conflicts of interest, and fair dealings with subjects, sources and advertisers.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the basic protections and restrictions of the law as they apply to the media, as well as the ethical problems and dilemmas journalists face. First Amendment rights and legal and ethical responsibilities and limitations will be examined and discussed. The course will look at these questions from five viewpoints: from (i) the practical view of a journalist doing his job with (ii) heavy consideration of ethical imperatives, and (iii) from a legal prospective, all the while (iv) considering the rules in a public policy context- are they fair and appropriate in our society? -- while (v) noting the historical context in which they arise. Significant court cases and fundamental legal rules as well as past ethical scandals and issues will be explored in the context of political and historical realities, and in terms of journalistic standards and practices; contemporary media law issues and ethical problems and guidelines will also be focused on. Among the basic First Amendment issues which will be examined are libel, invasion of privacy, prior restraints, newsgathering and newsgathering torts, and the reporter's privilege; some of the ethical issues to be explored include objectivity in reporting, bias and transparency, conflicts of interest, and fair dealings with subjects, sources and advertisers.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

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In this skills course, we will explore the world around us and look for stories beneath the surface. This section of Journalistic Inquiry is a fun, eye-opening journey to build a foundation for covering news and features with passion and creativity.

Bring a curious mind to this class as we cover news around the city. To get solid stories, let’s take the news and break it down. Analyze it and find experts and primary sources to bring our stories to life and give them a human dimension with telling quotes, anecdotes and thoughtful yet objective writing.

This will be a hands-on course aimed at making you confident multi-platform journalists, ready to take on assignments for print, TV and the Internet. Along the way, you will meet and interview newsmakers and characters from the worlds of business, fashion, media and more in the classroom and field.

You will prepare for assignments and group interviews in advance. Stay on top of your email – I will act as an assignment manager, updating us on what’s planned for class and how to get ready.

As we venture where the news takes us, you will get a taste for whether you like this profession and are well-suited for it. This class holds a mirror to a working world you will soon enter.

These days, most journalism jobs require you to be well-versed in all media. Consider this class a hearty buffet from which we will get a sampling of spot news and feature reporting for print, radio, TV and the Internet.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This course is designed to hone the student journalist's ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test them with the strength of his or her reporting and resarch, and then to present them in story form. Students will be expected to keep weeky beat notes or blogs, exploring what is current in the topic and demonstrating week after week the shoeleather they have worn in pursuit of their subject matter. Out of this work will come four or five stories in narrative, explanatory or investigative style, depending on the instructor and the specific assignment. Syllabi differ by content of the course but all sections emphasize idea development, interview technique, reporting, background research and writing skills across genres. Broadcast sections vary only by medium.

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An example to make this course concrete: Like any neighborhood, Brooklyn's Park Slope has its issues: There is frantic development on its once low-rise western side. There is a growing grocery-store rivalry. There are the yuppies in their brownstones, the twentysomethings in their shared apartments, the old-timers who resent the arrivistes, and the lesbians who have created their own thriving community. There are also the teens, the offspring of the yuppies, whose Park Slope is far different from the grownups'.Any one of these broadly defined "neighborhoods" may be grist for a great story. In this course, we will scout out such possibilities throughout Manhattan, perhaps the most fertile journalistic turf in the world. Thinking hard about what makes for rich articles, we will select one such neighborhood for each student, for which that student will essentially become the beat reporter, the correspondent. Each student will first steep himself or herself in that neighborhood, researching its past, walking its streets, interviewing its inhabitants and mining its nooks and crannies for feature stories, profiles and trend pieces.From such reporting, the student will write four articles of varying length, from 500 to 1,500 words, that offer a journalistically professional look at varied aspects of the assigned area. If your beat is the East Village, maybe you will report on the growing tensions within a squat. If your beat is Stuyvesant Town, maybe you will write an affecting day-in-the-life story of a 90-year-old woman who has lived there for decades. If your beat is the Lower East Side, maybe you will portray the unlikely friendship between the proprietor of a hip new boutique and the wizened haberdasher next door. All topics are open, from sports to music to immigration and beyond.As we immerse ourselves in our beats, we will hone our journalistic skills. Most classes will include a mini-lecture on a skill – story conception, interview techniques, articleorganizzation and varied writing challenges, from the lead to the transition to the good -- and not so good -- uses of quotation. Occasionally, reporters from The New York Times and elsewhere will visit as guest speakers, describing how they learned these varied skills.

This course is designed to hone the student journalist's ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test them with the strength of his or her reporting and resarch, and then to present them in story form. Students will be expected to keep weeky beat notes or blogs, exploring what is current in the topic and demonstrating week after week the shoeleather they have worn in pursuit of their subject matter. Out of this work will come four or five stories in narrative, explanatory or investigative style, depending on the instructor and the specific assignment. Syllabi differ by content of the course but all sections emphasize idea development, interview technique, reporting, background research and writing skills across genres. Broadcast sections vary only by medium.

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Whether you're based in Paris or Los Angeles, Beijing or Wyoming, covering a geographic beat is a unique experience because you need the confidence and skills to write about everything. For this class, our territory is the world situated south of 14th Street. Each of you will be based in a specific neighborhood, where you'll cover a wide range of stories. Whether you're reporting on crime or culture, politics or hot parties, you'll learn what it takes to parachute into a new locale and find your bearings. This class will unleash your inner adventurer by strengthening your interviewing/writing abilities while you're developing a reportorial voice. Guest speakers and field trips will be essential to our journey.

This course is designed to hone the student journalist's ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test them with the strength of his or her reporting and resarch, and then to present them in story form. Students will be expected to keep weeky beat notes or blogs, exploring what is current in the topic and demonstrating week after week the shoeleather they have worn in pursuit of their subject matter. Out of this work will come four or five stories in narrative, explanatory or investigative style, depending on the instructor and the specific assignment. Syllabi differ by content of the course but all sections emphasize idea development, interview technique, reporting, background research and writing skills across genres. Broadcast sections vary only by medium.

This course is designed to hone the student journalist's ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test them with the strength of his or her reporting and resarch, and then to present them in story form. Students will be expected to keep weeky beat notes or blogs, exploring what is current in the topic and demonstrating week after week the shoeleather they have worn in pursuit of their subject matter. Out of this work will come four or five stories in narrative, explanatory or investigative style, depending on the instructor and the specific assignment. Syllabi differ by content of the course but all sections emphasize idea development, interview technique, reporting, background research and writing skills across genres. Broadcast sections vary only by medium.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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This seminar focuses on the various components that comprise in-depth magazine stories and non-fiction books. We'll dissect great modern and classic magazine stories, books and book proposals for story, character arcs, dialogue, scenes, analysis, structure, transitions, verb tense, point of view and style. The goal is to figure out how memorable magazine features and narrative non-fiction books that keep your attention to the very last page are created, then to take what we've learned and apply it to our own work. There is one semester-long writing assignment—a 3,000+-word feature story—with several shorter related pieces involving scenes, character, dialogue, or analysis, all of which can be incorporated into your final story. Along the way we'll work on pitches, research and interview techniques, time management, outlines, editing and multiple drafts, and other challenges today's non-fiction narrative writers face.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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Our culture is obsessed by fame, from celebrities to neon names in business, sports, education, medicine, encompassing virtually every field. The media help drive fame, from magazine covers—People’s celebs-of-the-moment, New York magazine with Best Doctors, Esquire's "75 Best People in the World"--to television with countless reality shows where anyone can be a “star” for a week or two or more.

Andy Warhol famously predicted that everyone will get 15 minutes of fame. He could not have forecast how quickly that can happen in the 21st century on the Internet with viral YouTube videos, Facebook and Twitter. Social networking has made fame more accessible than ever and transformed fans into amateur paparazzi, thanks to digital cameras.

This course will focus on fame in all its manifestations including the cult of celebrity. We'll begin by reading Leo Braudy's "History of Renown," which covers the subject from Alexander the Great to modern times. We'll consider the question of how fame has evolved from being based on achievement to what historian Daniel Boorstin calls "well-knownness," which is people famous simply for being famous.

Course requires include a 1,000-word analysis of a person's climb to fame, a 1,500-word profile of a reality show contestant or viral video "star," and a 3,000-word heavily researched and reported piece on a "big fish" in a small pond or, conversely, a small fish a big pond.

A major part of the course is polishing your work so it can be posted on the class webzine http://fameology.net/, where students can experiment with text, photos and video. All students are all required to write a weekly blog on a subject area related to their final piece.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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This course takes a look at health care, sickness, doctors, patients, hospitals, offices, health care policy. We’ll spend time on personal accounts of encounters with the medical system, and read good reporting from the doctor’s side and the patient’s side; we’ll talk about how the subject of sickness and health shows up in different places, from business and the economy to public policy and politics to computer science and the electronic medical record to science and research. We’ll discuss the practical aspects of reporting on health and health care, including confidentiality and sources, and we’ll talk practically about dealing with doctors and hospitals. We’ll look at the kinds of stories, big and small, which grow out of the complexities of the U.S. health care system, with its particular maze of funding. We’ll cover cultural complexity (and cultural competency) in health care, and the drama of malpractice, and we’ll even look at medicine and the medical system as a source for popular entertainment and TV drama. Most of all, we’ll think about all the different kinds of stories to be found in health and sickness, and in the ways we look for and receive help. Students will work on several short assignments, building to a large and thorougly reported long-form piece.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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Restricted to Broadcast Students Only

This class is designed to provide you with the necessary tools to research, shoot and edit your own long-form broadcast news segment. During the semester you will study the best of long-form broadcast journalism and set out to create your own. You will learn the challenges of producing quality broadcast journalism, which will include understanding media ethics and the importance of good writing. Each student will research and pitch their own original story idea and by the end of the semester will produce an approximately 10-minute long broadcast segment on their chosen topic. In addition time in class devoted to developing your final project, during the semester you will meet and learn from award-winning long-form broadcast news producers, who will come to class to screen and discuss their work.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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In previous classes, students have learned the rudiments of story selection, writing and shooting. This class advances those skills, with the added pressure of meeting real deadlines; i.e., producing pieces that air on a live, weekly news broadcast. Stories will gradually grow in complexity over the semester.

Class one. Explanation of what the students will be expected to do during the semester, including how grades will be determined. Discussion of types of stories to be done and how they should be researched and presented to the professor for approval. Students are instructed to bring in story ideas by the next session. There will be attention to interviewing skills. All story ideas must be accompanied by a list of questions to be asked.

Students are required to do 4 stories of normal length and one more complicated, longer final piece.

Honors is a year-long research, writing and reporting course for seniors in which students choose and develop a senior thesis subject of their own choosing in the first semester and complete the project in the second. Students take Honors Advanced Reporting, followed by Honors Senior Seminar. Honors students must have a 3.65 average.

Honors is a year-long research, writing and reporting course for seniors in which students choose and develop a senior thesis subject of their own choosing in the first semester and complete the project in the second. Students take Honors Advanced Reporting, followed by Honors Senior Seminar. Honors students must have a 3.65 average.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

Be ready to write longhand. No computers. No cell phones in class. Pencil andyellow legal sized paper only. Please be on time. Bring a jacket and a metro card.For the first class, there is absolute silence when you enter the room. Notalking. Not even to say hello to your neighbor. You want to hear a hello? Here itis: Hello. Now, no talking for the first ten minutes of class. It sounds stupid, but itis our first exercise.

Good writing is all about finding the right detail or set of details that will show, nottell, the event to the listener. You are always fighting gravity, always fighting the readerwho will close the paper, book, magazine and tune you out. We will focus on placing youin the right mental place to find the details that will tell the story, from your perspective, ina way that is honest to your truth and hold the reader.

There will be some reading aloud in class. There will be no bloodlettings. Ifyou’re willing to fail, you will be successful. If you’re already a journalistic success, thisisn’t the class for you. Remember, writing is the act of continually failing at excellence,and uniformity is the ceiling against which great writing will forever bump. The mid termand final will be your writing.

Before each class, you will be expected to read the following excerpts from “ANietzsche Reader” (Penguin) translated by R. J. Hollingdale. They are not long, but theyare important. We may alter this list based on my assessment of your abilities . Readingassignments in Gary Smith and Micheal Herr’s books, as well as our Marvel Comicclass, will be assigned as we go deeper into the semester and I am able to assess yourabilities.

Do you have something to say? A story to tell? An original voice? This course will nurture that voice, help shape the stories, sharpen your skills. The personal essay is a popular form of nonfiction writing, cherished by both writers and readers, but crafting a successful essay is a difficult skill. How can we be self-revealing without being self-indulgent? How can we make our own experiences powerful for others? In this course students will read some of the best essays around, from Langston Hughes to Joan Didion to Oliver Sacks to Marjorie Williams, and write their own, taking each one through several drafts. The heart of the course will be close reading and editing of students' work.

Peace, War and Faith: Reporting on Global Religion, Conflict and International Affairs

A blend of regionally-focused and thematic study, intense analysis of foreign news coverage, and actual production and reporting effort, Peace, War and Faith is a course designed for students interested in internationally-focused video or print journalism. The class will offer a rare opportunity for hands-on experience supporting the production of a new television news series on the intersection of international politics and global religion for a major national media outlet. In 2012-2013, Professor Jason Maloney's non-profit production unit, the Bureau for International Reporting, has contracted with PBS NewsHour to produce a six-part series on this theme for broadcast on NewsHour's national program. This course will work towards identifying, researching and developing topics that are of global importance and appropriate for television news production and inclusion in this series.

To this end, students will divide up the world into regional dossiers, study local dynamics and socio-political trends and develop individual stories from within their areas of focus. In class, students will present and brief the group on their region, and on developments that impact our major theme. This will involve aggregating news content from a series of media, international and regional, but will also involve primary source reporting using Skype, phone and email and though coverage of public meetings and events focused on their topic and hosted by relevant organizations in New York (Human Rights Watch, Asia Society, UN groups). We will also occasionally bring these experts to us... and hear from a series of guest speakers who are expert in the topics and regions we are covering.

Some of the efforts undertaken by students as part of this class will support the production of the primary stories that are covered as part of this NewsHour video series; other work will lead to content that will be disseminated through a dedicated project website that students will develop, curate and promote via social media and online partnerships. This course will offer those students interested in TV or video news production an opportunity to be a part of a major news project that will result in significant airtime on a nationally-broadcast, well-respected outlet. For those students not primarily interested in video, this course still offers the opportunity for first-hand reporting on global and topical subject matter with the potential for clips running on a promoted website outlet. The essential skills for story identification, development, research and writing, with an emphasis on storytelling, are universal to all dissemination platforms. Though our primary outlet for this project is television, the class will emphasize story and reporting.

Working along with the Bureau for International Reporting will also offer students a deconstructed look at a startup non-profit journalism operation. We will be relying on the entrepreneurial spirit of the students to further our model.

Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) was the greatest cultural critic that America has ever produced – or so a good many cultural critics of our own time have come to believe. Wilson belonged to a circle of writers from the First World War generation that included John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. He wrote novels, poetry, plays, and diaries. But mostly he wrote book reviews and essays on literary, political and historical topics, which ran in the New Republic, the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and other magazines. His reviews and essays, assembled into books, have turned out to be classics – studied and cited by some of the most prominent critics of today.

The seminar will study Wilson’s style of journalistic writing – his emphases on clarity, on conversational ease, and on emotional forcefulness. The seminar will study his criticisms of the academic writing of his time. The students will be asked to apply Wilson’s principles of writing to their own compositions – an extremely useful thing to do for any student who seeks to become a better writer.

Empathy in narrative has roots in some of the earliest written stories—what is a literary character, after all, if not an imagining of the the world through someone else’s eyes? But empathy is not exclusively the tool of novelists and playwrights. In our time, journalists such as Alex Kotlowitz, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Anne Fadiman, Jon Krakauer, Susan Orlean, and Sebastian Junger (and earlier, John Hersey and others) have used a fiercely empathetic approach to create memorable and powerful nonfiction, often with social justice concerns. This course will survey the history and recent practice of empathetic nonfiction, using seminal readings as models for your own writing and reporting. In other words, it's a reading course and a writing course: Assignments will require original reporting and offer a chance to experiment with fundamentals of narrative writing such as scene-setting, character development, dialog, conflict, and writer’s voice.

Women & the Media is a collaborative seminar designed to examine the complex relationship(or different, contradictory relationships) between those humans we call “women” and thoseforms of discourse we call “media.” We will consider women both as subjects and objects, asartists and models, as creators of “media” in its many forms and as media’s creations. Whatdoes our culture’s “media” tell us about its ideas of gender? What, if anything, does our gendertell us about our readings of “media”? Student participation in this seminar is key: students areexpected to attend all sessions, to complete all the reading (there's lots of reading!), toparticipate actively in discussion, and to lead one of the class sessions themselves. Leading aclass means opening the day’s conversation with a presentation, critiquing and elaborating onthe assigned reading, bringing in additional relevant material, and suggesting questions orissues that seem particularly interesting or troublesome. The purpose of the course is todevelop our critical and self-critical faculties as journalists, media critics, consumers of media,and women or men—to think clearly, challenge our pet assumptions, and have fun.Along with attendance and informed class participation, students are required to conduct a miniresearchproject and present their findings to the class. I want you to pick a “women and media”topic that really interests you and then report the hell out of it. If you’re interested in the effect ofmusic videos on teenage girls, for instance, you would first put together an extensivebibliography of what has already been written on the subject. You would figure out what the keyquestions in the field were: do media images affect teens’ behavior or not, and how can anyonetell? You might interview some of the leading researchers in the area and tell us what they say.You’ll certainly want to read the most important books/articles on your subject. A paper is notrequired; instead, students will present their findings to the class during our last three sessions.

It has been 40 years since President Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders released its findings on the civil unrest that erupted in urban areas across the nation. The panel, commonly referred to as the Kerner Commission, concluded that we are living in two nations, “black, white, separate and unequal,” and devoted an entire chapter to the impact the media had on the nation’s race relations. “We believe that the media have thus far failed to report adequately on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and the underlying problems of race relations,” the report said. It added: “The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world. The ills of the ghetto, the difficulties of life there, the Negro’s burning sense of grievance, are seldom conveyed.”The report criticized as “shockingly backward” the industry’s failure to hire, train and promote African Americans. At the time, fewer than five percent of the newsroom jobs in the United States were held by African Americans. Today, despite the progress that’s been made in the hiring and coverage of African Americans and other so-called minorities, many critics say that the Kerner Report findings continue to resonate today. With the report as a backdrop, we will examine the portrayals of racial and ethnic minorities in the media, paying particular attention to African Americans – the subject of the Kerner Report – but also others, including Latinos, Asians, women, and gays and lesbians.

Learning from The Best To Be The Best is a survey of some of the most entertaining and well-written literary journalism of the last two centuries. We will read these articles and book excerpts carefully - "deep reading," it is called - to discover how good writers take basic journalism and enliven it with literary technique. We want to catalog as much of that technique and structure as we can so that we can "steal it," appropriate the devices for our own work. Students will work in teams; each week a team will "present" the readings and incite a discussion with the rest of the class. There will be some three to five formal academic papers in which students will be asked to demonstrate their understanding of the material, and there will be a number of "creative" assignments as well. The main text for the course is an excellent anthology of non-fiction: The Art of Fact by Kerrane and Yagoda..

New York is the most storied city in America; generations of writers have been entranced by it, and have produced masterpieces in tribute. We will look at the city as a character, in journalism, memoir, fiction, poetry, and film. What is the idea of New York in historical and contemporary imagination, and how different or similar are today's chroniclers of the city from their predecessors? What can we learn about urban reportage from the best practitioners of the genre? We will examine the texts for thematic concerns as well as those of craft. We will look at them as a car mechanic looks at a car; see how sentences are structured so that the text provides pleasure as well as information. And along the way, we will discover the broader possibilities and limitations of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and film.

The Middle East is in the headlines every day. But the coverage is often bewildering, focusing on the latest death toll in Iraq, a terrorist bombing, or an ongoing political crisis. There is little historical or political context in most of this coverage.

This course will provide students with an understanding of contemporary issues in the Middle East (such as the rise of militant Islam; the roots of Sunni-Shia tension; the failure of Arab nationalism; terrorism versus national resistance; the problem of the nation-state) by reading works that combine history, political analysis, and narrative journalism. This historical and political background will help students to eventually write about the region with depth and nuance, and to evaluate the coverage that they read.

We will also discuss the challenges of reporting from a region with competing narratives, authoritarian regimes that have little respect for a free press, and places where journalists must work under constant danger. We will have occasional guest speakers who have worked as foreign correspondents or editors managing coverage of the region.

To enroll: 1) Students must be declared journalism majors who have been offered an internship. The Career Services director must approve the internship. All sophomores must consult the director before applying for a credit internship. 2) No credit will be given for internships in advertising, marketing, public relations or the fashion/accessory closet. 3) Students may take the course for 1, 2, 3 or 4 credits but can earn no more than 4 credits total while attending the institute. Only one internship for credit is allowed per semester.

To enroll in Advanced Individualized Study, an interested student must find a full-time faculty member to be a sponsor and then must develop and file a syllabus. The syllabus must be approved by the faculty member and the Journalism Director of Undergraduate Graduate Studies (DUGS). It must list, in week by week fashion, all readings and all writing assignments that the student will undertake for the Advanced Individualized Study. Once approved, this syllabus constitutes your "contract" on the project and the student's work will be judged and graded with that in mind.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the basic protections and restrictions of the law as they apply to the media, as well as the ethical problems and dilemmas journalists face. First Amendment rights and legal and ethical responsibilities and limitations will be examined and discussed. The course will look at these questions from five viewpoints: from (i) the practical view of a journalist doing his job with (ii) heavy consideration of ethical imperatives, and (iii) from a legal prospective, all the while (iv) considering the rules in a public policy context- are they fair and appropriate in our society? -- while (v) noting the historical context in which they arise. Significant court cases and fundamental legal rules as well as past ethical scandals and issues will be explored in the context of political and historical realities, and in terms of journalistic standards and practices; contemporary media law issues and ethical problems and guidelines will also be focused on. Among the basic First Amendment issues which will be examined are libel, invasion of privacy, prior restraints, newsgathering and newsgathering torts, and the reporter's privilege; some of the ethical issues to be explored include objectivity in reporting, bias and transparency, conflicts of interest, and fair dealings with subjects, sources and advertisers.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the basic protections and restrictions of the law as they apply to the media, as well as the ethical problems and dilemmas journalists face. First Amendment rights and legal and ethical responsibilities and limitations will be examined and discussed. The course will look at these questions from five viewpoints: from (i) the practical view of a journalist doing his job with (ii) heavy consideration of ethical imperatives, and (iii) from a legal prospective, all the while (iv) considering the rules in a public policy context- are they fair and appropriate in our society? -- while (v) noting the historical context in which they arise. Significant court cases and fundamental legal rules as well as past ethical scandals and issues will be explored in the context of political and historical realities, and in terms of journalistic standards and practices; contemporary media law issues and ethical problems and guidelines will also be focused on. Among the basic First Amendment issues which will be examined are libel, invasion of privacy, prior restraints, newsgathering and newsgathering torts, and the reporter's privilege; some of the ethical issues to be explored include objectivity in reporting, bias and transparency, conflicts of interest, and fair dealings with subjects, sources and advertisers.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

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In this skills course, we will explore the world around us and look for stories beneath the surface. This section of Journalistic Inquiry is a fun, eye-opening journey to build a foundation for covering news and features with passion and creativity.

Bring a curious mind to this class as we cover news around the city. To get solid stories, let’s take the news and break it down. Analyze it and find experts and primary sources to bring our stories to life and give them a human dimension with telling quotes, anecdotes and thoughtful yet objective writing.

This will be a hands-on course aimed at making you confident multi-platform journalists, ready to take on assignments for print, TV and the Internet. Along the way, you will meet and interview newsmakers and characters from the worlds of business, fashion, media and more in the classroom and field.

You will prepare for assignments and group interviews in advance. Stay on top of your email – I will act as an assignment manager, updating us on what’s planned for class and how to get ready.

As we venture where the news takes us, you will get a taste for whether you like this profession and are well-suited for it. This class holds a mirror to a working world you will soon enter.

These days, most journalism jobs require you to be well-versed in all media. Consider this class a hearty buffet from which we will get a sampling of spot news and feature reporting for print, radio, TV and the Internet.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the Capstone course. Subject matter varies from section to section, but the basic skeleton of the course is the same across sections: the emphasis is on development of the ability to produce writing and reporting within a sophisticated longform story structure. The course involves query writing, topic research and reading, interviewing, and repeated drafts and rewrites, leading to a full-length piece of writing aimed at a publishable level and the ability of the student to present the reporting orally.

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You’ve probably heard a variation of this before: We’re no more aware of the media we swim in than a fish is of the water it lives in. In this class, we’re going to question everything about our media (including that truism).

The goal: to achieve a heightened awareness of the media surrounding us and to channel that awarenessinto insightful, engaging, and well-reported criticism.

You’ll hone your skills of observation and inquiry to analyze the social, psychological, and political effects of media in their various forms, from advertising and design to language, cable news, satire, and the omnipresent screen itself.

What stereotypes, clichés, fictions, flatteries, double standards, and false equivalencies do various media propagate, wittingly or otherwise? What roles do fact and fantasy play in our media, including in our own writing? How do different news outlets treat--and spin--the same story, and how does that shape public opinion and eventually history?

An attempt to better understand the communications revolution we are undergoing through an investigation of the nature and consequences of previous communications revolutions. Using readings ranging from Plato to Sontag to Kundera, the course will look closely at the history of spoken language, images, writing, printing, photography, radio and television. How were they understood? How were they initially used or misused? What were their effects upon social patterns, politics and thought? What can that tell us about the potential and potential influence of digital communication?

*Priority given to Media Criticism Students. A permission code is required to register, contact the department at 212-998-7994 or undergraduate.journalism@nyu.edu.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

This is the first-level reporting, research and writing course, which emphasizes in-depth research and interviewing technique as it introduces a variety of journalistic forms, including the reported essay, the newspaper pyramid style, magazine and newspaper feature style and broadcast newswriting style. The course focuses heavily on the critical and impartial examination of issues through research and reporting. Research methodology is key, as are observation and interview preparation and techniques. Research and reporting projects will include interviews, off- and on-line research, including books, government and non-governmental documents, interviews and databases, scholarly journals and other sources. This course provides a strong foundation in basic journalistic forms, issues and responsibilities.

Writing, Research & Reporting II: BER is designed as a feature writing class that focuses on business, and which builds on skills you acquired in WRRI. Over the course of the semester you’ll study the craft of magazine writing, come up with story ideas, participate in editorial meetings, write multiple drafts of feature stories and a column, read and discuss classic business books and articles and create and update your own business-centric blogs. To keep your deadline news skills fresh, you’ll also at times be assigned hard news business articles in class. In addition, I’ll invite magazine editors from some of the big books to come in and relate their experiences.

Your objective will be to master basic investigative tools and techniques, as well as how to apply them to everyday reporting and major enterprise pieces. We will explore how to take advantage of the two main sources of information—documents and people—and discuss when and how to use computer data to both enhance a story or provide the foundation for a major project. Throughout the course, the goal will be to constantly delve beneath the surface. Going deep is the essence of investigative reporting, which pulls together all publicly available information, as well as harder-to-find material, to present the fullest possible picture. Corporations and powerful individuals employ armies of PR experts, lawyers and lobbyists to ensure that only their version of reality prevails, and it is the lonely duty of journalists to dispel this fog of self-interest. At least as important as mastering the technical skills will be learning to think critically and skeptically. The relentlessly upbeat press release, the carefully worded SEC filing or the late-Friday-afternoon earnings statement each, as a matter of course, should be probed for accuracy and omission. What important development went unsaid? Did the company chairman really resign to “spend more time with his family”?

The most ambitious—and rewarding--profiles tell the story not just of a person but of an idea. Such portraits, by urging us to consider their subjects in the context of a body of work or professional discipline, give human form to abstract concepts. The reader comes to understand the profile subject as the embodiment of a culturally significant idea. Realizing such pieces is as difficult as it sounds! The best profiles combine extensive quotation with first-hand observation; salient biographical anecdotes; meticulously researched analyses of the subject’s writings, art work, performances, or public appearances; along with illuminating comments by friends, colleagues, and adversaries—all melded into a single, gripping narrative.

In this course, we’ll tackle the challenges of producing successful profiles, with an emphasis on practical solutions to frequently encountered problems. (Topics will include composing a seductive yet brainy lede, translating jargon and technical arcana for lay readers, wresting vivid scenes from dull subjects, and handling uncooperative subjects.) We’ll study how various journalists, writing about figures in a broad range of fields, from politics and finance to scholarship and the arts, have negotiated the profile’s challenges. We’ll read pieces by the genre’s most talented practitioners and meet some of those journalists in class (including several journalists from The New Yorker). Along the way, students will acquire a sense of the idea profile’s historical trajectory, from its antecedents among New York intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s and the New Journalism of the 1960s, to its flowering in recent decades, in magazines like Lingua Franca, The New York Times Magazine,Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker.

There will be two assignments. The first is a tightly focused, Talk of the Town-style mini-profile (800-900 words), in which students will interview a figure of current cultural importance and, with concision, eloquence, and wit, tell us why this person matters now. The second assignment is a full-length profile (3,500-4,000 words), whose subject will be determined early in the semester and to which students will devote several weeks.

This is an advanced course in the reading and practice of the long-form essay, which means nonfiction-with-a-thesis on a cultural topic that is longer than a brief review and shorter than a big book: essentially, swimming in a lake, as opposed to in a pool or an ocean. It consists of the readings below, class discussions, and the production of one long essay by the end of the semester, for which you will do two drafts.

We will be reading various kinds of work—a critical reading of a single artist; commentary and New Journalism on cultural-social-political themes; personal essays; lyric essays; polemics. Among the names below are famous critics, as well as writers known primarily as journalists, novelists, historians or poets. I have made an effort to include some very recent writing here as well as what’s old and established. Our focus here is “criticism,” in a broad sense, but through the term we will be looking at how a writer can turn an argument and thesis into a narrative that makes a reader want to keep reading. We will separate and identify the qualities that make all these pieces sing: thesis, tone, rhythm, rhetorical style, counterintuitive thinking, vocabulary, confidence, authority, evidence, tight or loose focus, trustworthiness, daring.

This seminar examines the ways in which some of the major writers of the 20th and early 21st-centuries have reported on the key and ever-controversial issues of race and class. We will look at how these issues have, historically, been written about, and at how some of today's best reporters and essayists are approaching them; and we will explore how concepts of class and race have changed over the last century. Among the writers whose works we'll study are W.E.B. Du Bois, James Agee, George Orwell, James Baldwin, Jamaica Kincaid, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., William Finnegan, Anthony Lewis., and Orlando Patterson. We'll explore controversial issues such as affirmative action, the increasing polarization of wealth, and the legacy of slavery. This is an intensive reading course with a major final project.

The staff foreign correspondent, once the elite of the newspaper profession, may be a creature on the verge of extinction. But it means that the opportunities to become a foreign journalist by going freelance are greater than ever. This course will give you the tools you need to get the facts in a foreign country and turn them into compelling stories for a domestic audience.

We will cover basics like making contacts, identifying reliable sources, and ensuring personal security; look at how to deal with cultural differences like norms of truth and social roles; study how the relationships between officialdom, business, and the media abroad differ from those in the US; learn how to navigate government bodies, NGOs, and international corporations and organizations; discuss the ethics of reporting abroad and the impacts it can have on you, your subjects and your audience; and explore the different skills needed for political, business, social, and war reporting. We’ll read some of the finest foreign journalism together, and the practical assignments will work on honing the reporting and, above all, the writing that will be essential whether you work for print, television, radio or the web, in a local, national or foreign beat.

But wait, you say: isn’t there a little problem here? How can we practice foreign reporting while stuck in New York City? Answer: you’ll report on New York as if you were a correspondent from a foreign country. If that sounds silly, it isn’t. This city is home to Byzantine politics, major industries, vibrant culture, a diverse population, and tough social problems, just like the best foreign assignments. It fascinates the world, and people everywhere know something about it, yet few understand its complexities—again, like the best foreign beats. It overloads you with information to be judged, sifted and made sense of. Reporting on New York for outsiders will serve as superb training for reporting distant places to a home audience.

This course will force you to set aside assumptions about what both you and your readers know; make you see New York with fresh eyes and report it from a cross-cultural perspective; and encourage you to flex your writing muscles in a wide range of styles.

Long-form journalism is often concerned with the story of people's lives over time, and the work of many celebrated journalists has strong ethnographic components, whether pursued consciously or not. Adrian LeBlanc's Random Family is one example. Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and War are two more (and Junger, who majored in anthropology, more than once has cited his debt to the discipline). Leon Dash, William Finnegan, and Alex Kotlowitz are other writers who believe in the payoffs to their journalism of immersive, in-depth research that is essentially ethnographic.

Using that kind of research to do journalism is what this course is about. We'll start with a look at some classic studies and learn how the ethnographic tradition arose. Next will be a short course in ethnographic fieldwork: How is it different from traditional journalistic research, and how does one do it? Finally, students will identify a person (it could be a bodega owner or a skateboarder), or small group of people (it could be a girls' soccer team, a group of Masons, or political activists) whose lives they will study over several weeks and then write about.

This course will essentially put you to work as a magazine writer. You will try your hand at a range of magazine pieces: a Q&A, a narrative feature, a service piece, a trend piece, a personal essay, a profile. In each case, we’ll read some examples of the genre, exploring what makes them exciting pieces of writing, and effective for a particular publication, whether print or online. We’ll focus on structure, voice, point of view, the money quote, the kind of detail that effectively invokes character and makes pieces memorable. You’ll pitch ideas before you tackle each piece; we’ll talk about reporting, interviewing and writing strategies before you jump in. Each of the pieces you write will be critiqued (by me and by other students) and you’ll be asked, as you would be by your editor, to revise. We’ll hear from visiting writers and editors who will talk about some of these things (among others): How to get people to say interesting, revealing, surprising, indiscreet things. How to use public sources of information to give pieces teeth. How to work and play well with editors: What editors love (and hate) in a writer, and vice versa. What might a journalism career look like over the next 10 years? How can you prepare for a field in which not only the technology but the business model is up for grabs?

WRII is the second half of our year-long writing and reporting class. This semester you will ramp up the basic skills to tackle more challenging writing assignments typical to magazines, both online and print. You will also choose a beat in an area that interests you and learn to develop story ideas, to access experts and research, and to report and write articles ranging from service pieces, to profiles, to personal essays to narratives. You will keep a blog on your research and reporting that will become, by semester’s end, a calling card to demonstrate your depth of knowledge on a particular beat. The blog will include multi-media elements such as slide shows. You will also work on developing your own distinctive voice. The gal of this class is to have students produce –and pitch—magazine articles.

This advanced video journalism class is intended to sharpen your reporting, and production skills.

You will be challenged to research and pitch compelling stories, and then produce short and long-form video segments. These segments will be produced for online and cable distribution.

You will be expected to master traditional news production techniques -and experiment. An emphasis will be placed on developing your proficiency as a one-person production unit in the field, a "digital backpack journalist" able to shoot and edit without assistance.

During the semester we will also spend plenty of time examining the changing form of video journalism on broadcast television, cable television and the web.

In this class, you'll be on the job. You will be a professional journalist who will meet deadlines and make your stories stand out. You will work on the skills you need to succeed in this field, but that only happens with practice. You and your classmates will become colleagues who will work together on stories to become an efficient newsroom. Your goal is to finish this class with the skills, experiences, confidence and swagger that will be key to your success in a business that is changing dramatically. You will file stories on our online site, "Pavement Pieces," which is a showcase to premiere your best work. This is a multimedia class so you will be shooting video, taking photos and creating slideshows on your city beat, in addition to writing lots of stories. You will also have to blog your beat.

In this class, you'll be on the job. You will be a professional journalist who will meet deadlines and make your stories stand out. You will work on the skills you need to succeed in this field, but that only happens with practice. You and your classmates will become colleagues who will work together on stories to become an efficient newsroom. Your goal is to finish this class with the skills, experiences, confidence and swagger that will be key to your success in a business that is changing dramatically. You will file stories on our online site, "Pavement Pieces," which is a showcase to premiere your best work. This is a multimedia class so you will be shooting video, taking photos and creating slideshows on your city beat, in addition to writing lots of stories. You will also have to blog your beat.

Writing and Reporting Workshop II is an introduction to long-form science journalism. Drawing on the narrative techniques of great fiction, students will produce news features, books (proposals and outlines), reported essays, stand-alone videos and explanatory pieces. In addition to these major assignments, there will be extensive in-class writing and reading exercises, including character sketches, op-eds and close textual analysis. Most classes will also reserve time for an informal "story meeting," where students will pitch story ideas. This will culminate with a formal query letter pitched to a specific media outlet.

Environmental Reporting has three major components. We will focus on writing -- and rewriting! -- insightful stories about environment-related topics that are often emotionally charged and highly politicized. We will also take deep dives into a series of crucial but often misunderstood topics such as risk assessment, epidemiology, environmental law, climate science, framing and the use of databases and other investigative tools. And finally, we will read and discuss the work of exemplary environmental writers and thinkers, from Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold to John McPhee and Bill McKibben. As we explore each of these three components, we will practice many forms environmental journalism, including news stories, features, topical profiles, blog posts, persuasive pieces and descriptive essays. We will also critique newly published environmental journalism every week.

This Studio 20 version of Writing, Research and Reporting II is specifically geared towards mastering multimedia reporting and production techniques. In 14 weeks, students will develop the skills to expand their reporting abilities into the areas of basic photography, audio production and, most significantly, video production.

This course is not just an academic exercise. In fact, the class will function at times more like an actual newsroom. We will use New York City as our assignment area and produce real audiovisual content on a regular basis. As students will own their own media, they will have the option to place it on any news site or blog they wish. They will also benefit from having the ability to produce content for the Local East Village, the Hyperlocal news blog that is a joint venture between the New York Times and NYU.

While much of what we will learn in WRRII will be of a technical skills nature, for example practicing how to shoot sequences, learning basic effects in Final Cut Pro, our main priority will be to learn and practice the essential elements of visual storytelling. While the basics can be discussed in our classroom setting, and we will devote a certain amount of our time to watching examples of excellence in visual storytelling, this is a skill that is best learned by doing. So it will be a key component of our field work: focusing on how to best use the visual medium to tell our stories. We will also learn to exercise our judgment as to which media can be used to best tell which stories.

At the successful conclusion of the course, students will have learned how to develop, produce, edit and delivermulti-media stories. This includes demonstrated proficiency in:

• Shooting basic video and acquiring professional audio

• Editing video and audio; encoding projects for final delivery to a variety of outlets

• Use of basic video titling, manipulating and editing still photographs for use in video projects or creating

This course represents a rare, exciting and meaningful opportunity for professional growth. These multi-media production abilities are the kinds of skills that will be required to be competitive for many jobs. Students will leave the course with not only new skills and knowledge,but with at least the start of a “clip reel”.

In Studio Two, students in the Studio 20 program, and others who request to take the course and receive permission from the instructor, tackle one large project in web development: as a team. The project chosen will vary from term to term, but it always be an adventure in web journalism, and it will always have a media partner-- typically a news organization or existing journalism site that wants to do something new or collaborate with Studio 20 on an extension of its current editorial presence.

Students participate in all phases of the project: background research, news ecosystem analysis, technology assessment, design and conception, prototyping, editorial work flow, content production, testing, launch, feedback and adjustment, de-bugging, iteration and evaluation. They collaborate actively and in person with the media partner. They learn to divide up tasks and coordinate the different parts of the project. They try to push the envelope and do something effective but also innovative in web journalism that meets the partner's goals, works for the users and adds to the reputation of Studio 20.

Studio Two is a required course for students in the Studio 20 concentration. A limited number of spaces are available for students in other programs and disciplines, especially if they bring skills to the project that the project needs. Permission of instructor is required. Contact Professor Jay Rosen if you are interested in being added to the course. Professor Rosen is particularly seeking students with knowledge of graphic design for the web, all aspects of web production, computer programming, or expertise in the wordpress.com content management system.

Sponsored by The NYU Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship and the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.

Expressly designed for graduate students outside of Journalism and FAS.

How to translate the specialized languages of particular disciplines in order to reach a larger public is at the heart of this course. Too often, specialists find themselves hostage to the arcane tongues of particular disciplines. Yet they possess knowledge that often cries out to be understood by a broader public. The course will concentrate on the structure of good storytelling, the marshaling of evidence, the unfolding of convincing narrative, and the rhetorical style necessary for turning useful work into memorable writing. Good writers are good readers and this course will explore some of the more successful practitioners of public writing and the art of advancing an argument for a general readership, including, among others, Lewis Thomas, George Orwell and Joan Didion.

Journalists who can successfully navigate these turbulent media times must be equal parts journalist and entrepreneur. In this seminar students will learn the basics of journalistic entrepreneurism: brand management, basic web design (mainly user scenarios, information flow and database modeling), the use of social media platforms, how to develop business models, innovate within an existing company, and attract capital. There will be a lot of learning by doing. Students will have a choice to run their own blog-based business (posting, selling ads, marketing their work) or track and profile an existing startup. The semester will culminate with students either drafting their own business plan for a media start-up that they will pitch in class, or completing a 3500-word, publishable business profile. Guests will include well-known journalists, corporate innovation managers, successful media entrepreneurs, and investors.

All narrative voices—but especially the voices in true narratives—are themselves fictions. The world of nonfiction writing is divided between those who know this and those who either don't or else deny it—a division that is roughly contiguous with that between writing that's worth reading and writing that's not. Nonfiction texts are fictions in that they deploy the devices of fiction (pacing, modulation of voice, considered sequence of revelation, irony, metaphor, etc.) but even more so in that they are constructs (they're composed, they're in-formed and made up). In this seminar we will revel in the architectonic of good nonfiction writing. We will consider admirable sentences and marvelous paragraphs. We will study foundations and jointure, account for senses of spaciousness and constriction. We will examine and upend the myth of objectivity. We will try to determine what makes one piece of writing true to life while another lies there simply dead. We will read as if writing mattered, and write as if reading did.

Hyperlocal News is the buzzword and the focus of many media companies. As newspapers and their staffs shrink, they are reporting less neighborhood news. People are hearing less about the news that most affects them. This class will be run like a newsroom with one goal - pump out stories, videos, audio slideshows, podcasts and audio slideshows for an actual publication. The East Village Local is a joint project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and The New York Times. Their assignment will be to fill its pages with the best, cutting edge, well-reported and written content you can find. This will be a skills based immersion course. At the successful completion of the course, students will have a demonstrated proficiency in beat reporting, video production, audio presentation

As the opportunities for quality journalism continue to dwindle, radio, the world's first mass medium, is not only thriving but evolving. Few outlets prize in-depth news and cultural coverage as much as NPR & PRI; fewer still have set aside so much airtime for freelancers. In short, audio storytelling is a valuable skill in a media landscape that increasingly favors 'backpack journalism.' In this course, students will come to understand how radio conveys information and analysis with nuance and intimacy. You'll learn how to interview, gather tape, edit, voice, and produce your own stories and commentaries for radio and podcast. You'll learn how to write for the ear, create narrative arcs, and use sound design to help tell a story.

We'll cover a full range of techniques including spot news, creative commentary, non-narrated audio postcards, and longer narrative pieces using documentary methods. Generating and pitching story ideas will be a priority, and we will regularly engage in critical listening of each other's work. In addition to guest lectures from luminaries in the field, the course will culminate with a visually enhanced collaboration with WNYC Radio's digital team. Weekly classes are split into two sections, with one period devoted to more intensive technical instruction. The idea is to let students reap the advantage of extra in-class editing and mix work to get the most out of their assignments.

In contemporary war, "the other" is viewed not only as an enemy to be fought but, often, as one to be eliminated. How do journalists and filmmakers fight against (or, alternately, reinforce) such deadly representations? This class will focus primarily (though not exclusively) on one of the world's most conflict-ridden regions--the Middle East--though it will also explore films from Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and the United States. Through journalistic readings and film screenings, we will explore how "the other" is constructed: politically, aesthetically, ethically. This class is designed for anyone interested in contemporary politics and history, especially those of the Mideast; the journalism of conflict and violence, and the ethical questions associated with them; filmmaking; and film criticism.

The weekly schedule will be divided in two sections: 1-6pm and 6-9pm. Students will be assigned to one section each week.

Digital Newsroom is a new course offering that will combine TV Newscast and iBeat Reporting to allow graduate students to develop a comprehensive set of skills that will prepare them for a career in video journalism. It is a holistic that will expand the scope of the newscast and meet the needs of a wide range of students. It will also introduce the idea of entrepreneurial journalism for those students with a video emphasis.

The merged classes will function as cross training in a real newsroom environment as opposed to learning each function in isolation. We believe that this approach will allow students to better experience the energy, collaborative nature and deadline pressure of a daily news operation. By bringing these two classes together students will be able to develop their reporting and writing skills, achieve fluency with a wide range of newsroom production tools and gain basic understanding of how to produce a newscast and, through a rotation, focus more heavily on field reporting, advanced editing and camera techniques, and live reporting. The class will also encourage media crossover and experimentation. For instance, students will be able to use iPhones and other mobile devices in newsgathering and editing.

Over the semester students will rotate among each typical newsroom position. These positions include reporter, writer, executive producer, director, anchor, camera and so on. Students will be given the opportunity to spend more time focusing on a position that interests them most, yet they will be exposed to all the positions.

This is an advanced writing course with a rigorous focus on the mechanics of the essay. How does a great essay work? We will examine the elusive elements of precision, originality, and style. Over the course of the semester students will focus on developing and refining their own voice. Writers under discussion will include: Edmund Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov, Kenneth Tynan, Elizabeth Hardwick, Randall Jarrell, Virginia Woolf, Janet Malcolm, David Foster Wallace and James Wood.

Great stories are shaped by talented, reckless, funny, arrogant and often misanthropic writers and reporters working at the height of their craft. In this class, we will study how world-shaking historical events and everyday experiences alike can be crafted into original journalistic narratives. We will concentrate on the writer's angle of approach to the subject - his or her ÒvoiceÓ - which is made more or less convincing through his or her control over language and the depth and range of his/her reporting. The first half of each class will consist of close readings of nonfiction narratives on Balkan wars, acid trips, nervous breakdowns, rock and roll concerts, a sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways, a visit to the Iowa State Fair and assorted other subjects by some of my favorite journalists and novelists including Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Rebecca West, Ryszard Kapucinski, Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Mitchell. Each class will begin promptly at 12:30 PM and will be divided between an hour and thirty minute discussion of the assigned reading and an hour and fifteen minute discussion of your written work. Latecomers will be greeted with derision. We will break at 2 PM for afternoon snack. We will also enjoy visits from enlivening and informative guests from Harper's, The New Yorker and other high-class venues, who can answer any questions you might have about reporting and editing, and who will help you shape your ideas with an eye towards publishing your own work.

Celebrity chefs and their tv empires, illegal immigrant waiters living an underground existence, an activist city government banning transfats and upgrading school cafeteria food, street vendors fighting for space in front of the Metropolitan Museum, stores advertising low-cal ice cream that in reality packs on the pounds, blocks with dozens of Indian restaurants side-by-side - there are an endless number of great stories to be done about Manhattan's high and low food chain. Combining intensive reading, reporting and writing, this course would use the food world as a laboratory. Students will tackle a wide array of stories revolving around food, dealing with larger issues such as economics, social class, environmental and health safety issues, government action and pure aesthetics. The goal is to make students comfortable with the subject area, as well as teach them how to find memorable stories in seemingly humdrum situations. Required for this course: a good appetite and a healthy curiosity.

To enroll in Directed Readings, an interested student must find a full-time faculty member to be a sponsor and then must develop and file a syllabus. The syllabus must be approved by the faculty member and the Journalism Director of Graduate Studies. It must list, in week by week fashion, all readings and all writing assignments that the student will undertake for the Directed Readings. Once approved, this syllabus constitutes your "contract" on the project and the student's work will be judged and graded with that in mind.

The class will examine how editors imprint their own sensibility on a magazine, woo an audience and develop a unique identity for their publication. Coming up with the right mix of articles is a constant challenge; editors are always trying to re-invent the formula as well as struggling to find interesting ways to package service pieces or celebrity profiles, or come up with catchy covers and headlines to boost newsstand circulation.

New magazines evolve either from one person's passionate idea (Esquire and its founder Arnold Gingrich, Tina Brown and the Daily Beast) or are launched by corporate magazine development departments (Oprah, Real Simple, Lucky). This class will examine the history and evolution of magazines, from the hits and misses (Portfolio, Domino) of recent years to a look back at the past. Weekly classes will focus on different aspects of magazine-making, and leading editors, art directors and photo editors will visit as guest speakers to provide their expert insights.

Social media has changed the news industry. Journalists need to be able to deliver accurate news in real-time in order to maximize their effectiveness. In this course, students will learn how to use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare to successfully find sources and story leads, verify information and debunk rumors, interact with their readers, crowdsource for investigations, and build beats. Students will learn mobile reporting techniques in the field, experiment with real-time storytelling via live blogs, and gain experience with tools such as Ushahidi and Google Fusion Tables to build interactive maps with data pulled from social media platforms. We’ll also explore the ways in which technically-savvy journalists can use these tools to bring their reporting projects to larger audiences and create dynamic new careers as 21st-century reporters and editors.

"Non-Fiction Narrative"surveys some of the best reportage and non-fiction literature produced in the English language here and abroad across the last 300 years. Its purpose is to familiarize you with the literary currents of the profession. For the most part, the course emphasizes the art and scholarship of reading.